Lelonkiewicz_et_al_2020_Adaptation_and_Anticipation
Interacting agents may anticipate their partner’s upcoming response and include it in their action plan. In turn, observing an overt response can trigger agents to adapt. But while anticipation and adaptation are known to shape action control, their interplay in social interactions remains largely unexplored. In four experiments, we asked how both of these mechanisms could contribute to one striking phenomenon: Agents initiate actions faster when they know their partner will produce a compatible rather than an incompatible response. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the compatibility between agents’ actions and partners’ responses, and investigated the interplay between adaptation and anticipation within the same dyadic interaction. In Experiments 2-4 we isolated the contribution of each of the two mechanisms by having agents interact with virtual partners whose responses could be experimentally controlled. We found that adaptation and anticipation exert parallel but independent effects on action execution: Participants initiated their actions more quickly when the upcoming partner response was compatible and, independently, when their partner had responded more quickly on the preceding trial. These findings elucidate models of action control in social interactions. [NOTE: Please cite this paper as: Lelonkiewicz, J. R., Gambi, C., Weller, L., & Pfister, R. (2020). Action–effect anticipation and temporal adaptation in social interactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 46(4), 335–349. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000717 ]